Day 58: Riverton WY to Badlands National Park SD

Saturday, June 13
Riverton WY to Badlands National Park
Odometer Begin: 116, 880
Miles traveled: 475
Time spent traveling: 8.5 hours
Other: Cost of entry to Mt. Rushmore we didn’t pay: $10. You can get the same view from outside of the park.
Wx: mostly sunny high 70 F, thunder storms at night
States traveled: WY, SD

We drove across the plains today past Mount Rushmore, ending out drive at Badlands National Park. Badlands is a very unique area of small canyons and sharp rock peaks. We camped at Cedar Pass Campground. Our friend Dave had told us about Sage Creek area to camp in and I was really looking forward to that but it turns out they close the road after heavy rain storms and June is the rainiest month here.

S Dakota

Day 57: Yellowstone NP to Riverton WY

Friday, June 12
Yellowstone National Park WY to Riverton WY
Odometer Begin: 116, 633
Miles traveled: 247
Time spent traveling: 7 hours
Other: Full dinner for 2 at Taco Bell: $4.76
Wx: mostly cloudy high 60 F, showers
States traveled: WY

We left Yellowstone this morning and drove through the northern part of Grand Teton National Park.

From Grand Teton and WY

We crossed the continental divide a few times and find ourselves on the Atlantic side for the remainder of the trip. As we make the push east our thoughts begin to go ahead of us and start thinking of our next step. We have really enjoyed this trip so far and want to be fully in the trip until the end, since this is a once in a life time opportunity.

From Grand Teton and WY

Day 56: Yellowstone National Park

Thursday, June 11
Yellowstone National Park WY
Odometer Begin: 116, 505
Miles traveled: 128
Time spent traveling: 6 hours
Other: Old Faithful geyser ruptures every 90 minutes +/-
Wx: mostly cloudy high 50s F.
States traveled: WY

So, no snow last night but it was cold. We started out the day at Mammoth Hot Springs Lower Terrace. It is a terraced area of white, yellow and orange, plus steam. We decided that we would drive the interior loop of Yellowstone. We checked out the falls, they were cool, but we have seen falls before. The yellow walls of Yellowstone canyon were beautiful. We headed by the lake next which is enormous and then through a wildlife corridor where we saw LOTS of Bison.

We ended up at Upper Geyser Basin, where Old Faithful is at around 12:45. Old Faithful erupts every 90 minutes and the next eruption was at 1:15 ish. We with at least 3,000 others waited for the show. Click on photo below to watch short movie.

From Yellowstone

It was cool but the real show is from Grand Geyser, which is less predictable. They estimated that today it would erupt between 9:30 AM and 1:30 pm. We got there at around 1:45 pm and it started as soon as we walked up, no joke. How is that for timing? Grand geyser is the biggest in the park and last for 7-20 minutes. There must have been at least 100,000 gallons of water coming out of it!

Tonight we camp at Norris Campground which is much better and there is even a Ranger Talk on the history of Yellowstone we may check out.

Yellowstone

Day 55: Glacier NP MT to Yellowstone NP WY

Wednesday, June 10
Glacier National Park MT to Yellowstone National Park, WY
Odometer Begin: 116, 079
Miles traveled: 426
Time spent traveling: 8 hours
Other: Percentage of chance of snow forecasted for tonight: 30%
Wx: mostly sunny 40s to 60s F.
States traveled: MT, WY

We stayed dry for the most part with just the feet of our sleeping bags getting wet from touching the tent. In the morning there was a nice coating of ice over everything! We also had a couple visitors to the campsite, a male roughed grouse that was doing his wing beating thing, not minding at all our presence and Frank, our white tail deer mascot who grazed on the outskirts of the site. We did see a herd of Big Horn Sheep with binoculars on the hillside above the campground and a moose on the drive out. We also saw a Pronghorn (antelope) and Elk. A good day to see wildlife.

We drove through prairie land of Montana between the two parks. Unfortunately, a truck hauling gravel threw a stone at the windshield and what started out as a tiny gouge grew to a pretty good crack in about an hour! We’ll probably have to get that fixed too!

From Yellowstone

Upon entering the park at the North entrance we stopped at Mammoth Campground. Brian thinks I always should be positive in the blog but I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning so, it is the worst campground I have seen in a National Park or Forest! He took the picture of the site at an angle so it looks better.

From Yellowstone

We had Santa Fe Chipotle Soup for dinner and then went for a small trek up the hills around the campground. We didn’t see many animals (just a small herd of Elk with 5 calves in tow who were super cute) but we did see a lot of poop!

Day 54: Glacier National Park MT

Tuesday, June 9
Glacier National Park MT
Odometer Begin: 115,945
Miles traveled: 134
Time spent traveling: 3.5 hours
Other: First rain on tent in 50 days!
Wx: mostly cloudy, rain, sleet, haiil, low 40s F
States traveled: MT

We packed up our things after a warm breakfast of a ham, black beans and egg scramble. Since the Going to the Sun road is not open yet, we had to drive around the southern border of the park on Highways, 2, 49 and 89. It is a very pretty drive so we didn’t mind much. The east side of Glacier is quieter which suits us and it also way more breathtakingly beautiful. The Mountains are sharp and jagged and just amazing! We got to the Many Glacier campground around 12:30, found our site and set up the tent. Rain was coming so we put the tarp up over the table. We’d decided to hike into Grinnell Glacier and see if we could spot any Big Horn Sheep or Mountain Goats. The hike is definitely one of the highlights of the trip. It follows a valley by several lakes and then climbs up to look over Grinnell Lake. We are not exactly sure where the glacier was among the snow or if it is still there because a sign at the trail head said it was decreasing rapidly in size. We did see Mountain Goats off in the distance that we could look at with binoculars. We did not see and grizzly or black bears but I guess they were active in that part of the park during the day.

When we got back to camp we were getting dinner ready when it started to rain. Because of the rain we ended up getting in the tent around 6:30 and reading books. We had met a couple of English blokes (father and son) who were actually from NH and had an RV. They came over to check on us in the rain and invited us over to warm up in their heated RV. We went over for a while, and had ginger snaps and chocolate chip cookies…I was happy. The rain continued through the night but we could see that we were just below the snow line, I think snow may have been better because the tarp sprung a leak but we were staying mostly dry.

There are a lot of photos here but they are pretty stunning if I do say so myself...

Monday, June 8
Troy MT to Glacier National Park MT
Odometer Begin: 115,784
Miles traveled: 161
Time spent traveling: 4.5 hours
Other: We saw 1 common loon in the lake
Wx: cloudy & misty high 60s F then sunny high 60s F
States traveled: MT

Off to Glacier National Park today. We weren’t sure how much of the Going To The Sun road was going to be open yet, so we got to the park and went straight to the Visitor Center. The ranger was very helpful, he suggested a few campgrounds and hikes. We could only get to Avalanche area of the road so we chose a campsite at Sprague Creek campground, set up our tent at a sweet site on the edge of McDonald Lake and drove up the remaining 12 miles of the road that we open. There we parked and decided to hike the 2 miles out to Avalanche Lake. Us and everyone else. Parks being what they are always crowded but since this was the end of the road, it seemed like everyone had the same idea. The lake is amazing! The steep snowcapped mountains jut right out of the lake. We headed back to the car and had a yummy dinner of black bean quesadillas, I had been thinking about them ALL day!

Day 52: Rossland BC to Troy MT

Sunday, June 7
Rossland BC to Troy MT
Odometer Begin: 115,647
Miles traveled: 137
Time spent traveling: 4 hours
Other: Minutes spent at the US border: 5, the fastest re-entry ever!
Wx: cloudy high 60s F then sunny high 60s F
States traveled: BC, ID, MT

Today we were going to go to Banff National Park and then head out back to the US tomorrow. But fate had other plans so we turned toward the US border in Idaho instead. Another gorgeous drive. We spent the night at Yaak River Campground in the Kootenai National Forest, which is a beautiful spot which we had practically to ourselves. Unfortunately, while sorted photos I realized we didn’t take any of British Columbia. Trust me, it is breathtaking.

Montana